Chapter One: Felinecide
Carlotta thought she had taken care of everything. The old broad, Amanda, was easy. A slight overdose of catnip, and her twenty something year old body couldn't take it, she was gone within months. Nina, the younger one took some doing, a slow drip, drip, of rat poison in her food did her in. It took a few years for it to kill her, but at last Nina also was out of her life. Carlotta had wormed her way into this house with a virtuoso display of cuteness in a restaurant parking lot, but once she was in, sharing was not on her mind. She wanted the whole house to herself. She wanted to be an 'only kitty'. Now her last challenge lay ahead, that tough old calico, Marlena.
Marlena was different, she had been brought up on the mean streets. She knew how to survive. Living on garbage and the occasional handout, Marlena had lived for years without a home. When she finally found her way into this house, she knew she had made it and no little upstart kitten was going to take it away. Carlotta, however would give it her best.
When the tricks she had tried on Amanda and Nina failed, Carlotta had to come up with a plan that hadn't been tried before. It couldn't be obvious, like stabbing her in her sleep. Choking her was out of the question, because Carlotta knew she'd be on the losing end of any physical combat with Marlena. It was when that big, dumb, black dog, Molly moved in that she figured out what to do.
Slowly over a period of time, Carlotta gathered a quantity of gravy that she would garner from the left over dishes that the human, Mark, would leave in the sink every night. When she had enough gravy she began her plan. After the house fell silent and dark every night, she would sneak out her stash of gravy and drip a bit on the sleeping Marlena's neck. The smell of the gravy would waft through the house until it drifted under Molly's nose, awakening her. Over a period of time, Marlena's neck became denuded of fur as night after night, Molly licked the gravy off, taking a bit of gravy flavored fur with each lick.
Marlena awakened every morning in a fowl mood, her sleep interrupted in the middle of the night by the beast licking her fur off. To the humans it looked like some kind of a disease, mange or some such thing. Yet, after numerous trips to the veterinarian no solution was found, and with each passing day Marlena's health seemed to deteriorate. Finally after she seemed to be near death, it was decided that Marlena would be sent away to live out her life at 'The old cats home', a place the humans called 'Garet's House'.
Alan, you have too much time on your hands. Everyone knows that Marlena had a substance abuse problem and had to go to Betty Jones for the cure. It so sad when parents are in denial of their children's real problems and just become enablers.
ReplyDeleteI think you might need some family counseling.
I'm a bit confused. Is this Alan World or Garet World? All these blogs on cats, cats, cats.......
ReplyDeleteYes Marlena went to Garet Manors Home for elderly felines. After her arrival her neck scratching stopped, she started using the litter box again, and she received lots of pampering and new friends. She quickly became Queen of the house taking over and living on my stovetop overseeing her kingdom and was always first to get fresh moist food, water, and treats. She lived to the ripe old age of at least 19 years (possibly more)before she passed gently in her sleep. Yes she was a fiesty one and she loved to be petted snd have her head scratched alot toward the end. She had long walked in the green grass and fresh country air. Thank you all that knew her, loved her, and cared for her. I'm currently caring for 3 more elderly felines. Two of mom's (Tasha 18 & Ming 19 years) and Figaro(16). I think I need to open up a feline retirement home and at least get paid for doing this.
ReplyDeleteI hereby vow, per Russell's request, never again to write in bumpin language again. I will further more, write as the highly educated and well versed human being that I am. I will write in an appropriate and intellectual style becoming of people on the vanguard of philisopical theorems.
ReplyDeleteIn mathematical logic, a theorem is a type of abstract object, one token of which is a formula of a formal language which can be derived from the rules of the formal system that is applied to the formal language; another token of which is a statement in natural language, that can be proved on the basis of explicitly stated or previously agreed assumptions.
In all settings, an essential property of theorems is that they are derivable using a fixed set of inference rules and axioms without any additional assumptions. This is not a matter of the semantics of the language: the expression that results from a derivation is a syntactic consequence of all the expressions that precede it. In mathematics, the derivation of a theorem is often interpreted as a proof of the truth of the resulting expression, but different deductive systems can yield other interpretations, depending on the meanings of the derivation rules.
The proofs of theorems have two components, called the hypotheses and the conclusions. The proof of a mathematical theorem is a logical argument demonstrating that the conclusions are a necessary consequence of the hypotheses, in the sense that if the hypotheses are true then the conclusions must also be true, without any further assumptions. The concept of a theorem is therefore fundamentally deductive, in contrast to the notion of a scientific theory, which is empirical.
Although they can be written in a completely symbolic form, theorems are often expressed in a natural language such as English. The same is true of proofs, which are often expressed as logically organised and clearly worded informal arguments intended to demonstrate that a formal symbolic proof can be constructed. Such arguments are typically easier to check than purely symbolic ones — indeed, many mathematicians would express a preference for a proof that not only demonstrates the validity of a theorem, but also explains in some way why it is obviously true. In some cases, a picture alone may be sufficient to prove a theorem.
Because theorems lie at the core of mathematics, they are also central to its aesthetics. Theorems are often described as being "trivial", or "difficult", or "deep", or even "beautiful". These subjective judgements vary not only from person to person, but also with time: for example, as a proof is simplified or better understood, a theorem that was once difficult may become trivial. On the other hand, a deep theorem may be simply stated, but its proof may involve surprising and subtle connections between disparate areas of mathematics. Fermat's last theorem is a particularly well-known example of such a theorem.
Comments longer and more verbose than my story? That's not right.
ReplyDeleteIt's Russell's fault. hehe
ReplyDeleteGaret, are you familiar with the word "plagiarism"
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to get Garet to admit or deny that statement? It is also called "cut & paste." hehe
ReplyDelete